Written By BiharWatch on Sunday, November 09, 2008 | 11:06 PM

Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation has a plan to invest Rs 141.89 crore for the total waste management of the city. SELCO had signed a MOU with Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) for a 10 MW power plant in the presence of Narendra Modi. It enjoys massive political patronage especially in Andhra Pradesh & now in Gujarat.

One does not know how will SELCO generate 10 MW from 700 MT of waste per day.

Its technology was given at Vijayawada to set up a garbage processing plant through MInistry of Science & Technology, which has failed too. SELCO is the one which is responsible for the public health disaster in Andhra. Even Delhi, Patna, Jaipur & Mumbai projects are using the same technology. ILFS is quite fond of SELCO's "success".

Concerned central ministries & state governments are indulgent towards GV Rama Krishna, its Chairman although they know its failures.

The good news is that the Agra RDF project which environmentalists were opposing has been shelved and the Chennai is most likely to meet the same fate on pollution grounds.

The Solid Waste Management (SWM) of Ahmedabad is slated to get a major boost with the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) planning to invest Rs 141.89 crore for the total revamp of SWM in the city.

The project comes under the umbrella of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) and has contributions by the Union Government, the Gujarat government and AMC.

Prashant A Pandya, Deputy Director, Solid Waste Management, AMC said: “Ahmedabad produces about 2200 tonnes of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) everyday. To manage it properly, this project is the need of the hour. AMC will bear about 50 per cent of the cost, while the Centre would defray 35 per cent and the state government would bear rest of the cost.” He further said that the AMC has prepared a detailed project report and submitted it to the state government for final approval.

Along with a proposal to segregate non-biodegradable waste and draw up transportation routes for the Dumpers, AMC has also submitted the details of infrastructure facilities to be constructed at the new Secured Landfill Site at Gyaspur. The site, with an area of about 1084 hectares, is proposed to have a 2800 metre-long wire fence around the landfill area. This has been done to prevent the city rag pickers from accessing the garbage area.

Among other measures, AMC has also signed a formal engineering, procurement and construction contract with a company called Solid Waste To Electricity Company (SELCO) International Limited for setting up a 700 tonnes per day capacity MSW processing unit at the new landfill site. The plant covering an area of three hectares proposes to produce about 4.5 lakh units of electricity every month.